Thursday, May 31, 2012

IELTS Writing Task 1: bar chart without years

Last week we saw that there are two types of bar chart:1. those that show changes over time2. those that compare different items

The important thing to remember about the second type is that you can't describe increases and decreases. Let's look at this type in more detail.

The chart below shows numbers of incidents and injuries per 100 million passenger miles travelled (PMT) by transportation type in 2002.

Here's my advice for a 4-paragraph essay:

Introduction: Explain what the chart shows by paraphrasing the question.

Overview: Look for two main things - in this case, we could mention the highest item and the fact that there were more incidents than injuries for all five transport types. You don't need to mention any numbers at this point.

Details: I'd probably group together the two highest items (demand response and bus) in this paragraph. Remember that you can't talk about an increase or decrease; you can only compare the numbers.

Details: I'd group the three types of rail transport together for this paragraph. Write some nice comparison sentences!

Note:You don't need to know what 'demand-response' transport is (it's an American term which I've never used), but click here if you want to know.

Comments

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hi simon.
The bar chart illustrates the number of incidents and injuries per 100million pmt by different types of transpotation in 2002.
It is clear that demand response shows the highest number of incidents and injuries as compared to other four catogories.Also, the number of incidents were more than injuries in all 5 types of transpotation.
In demand response there were 225 million pmt incidents as compared to 173 million pmt accidents.LIkewise,there were 51 million pmt incidents than 35 million pmt injuries by bus.

The figures for accidents and incidents by light rail out numbered heavy rail and commute rail.In each category the number of incidents were more than accidents by 36, 16, and 3 million pmt respectively.Commute rail shows the lowest numbers of accidents and injuries as compared to other types of transpotation.

hi simon .
i have just posted my essay .i want 2 ask that in this task do v have 2 describe injuries and incidents of each category ?or v have 2 make comparision among each group.like the bus injuries were more than commute rail etc.
hope u answer my question .i am going 2 buy your book on weekend.
thanks for ur good effort.

Hi Simon! Thanks for pointing out the differences between these kinds of bar charts, I did not figured them out before, my ielts books do not consider them even!

Here's my essay.

The bar chart presents figures for incidents and injuries per 100 million passengers miles travelled (PMT) related to different transport means in 2002.

In general, both the figures for serious fatalities and injuries were dramatically higher for the demand response field rather than the other ones.
The lowest amount of injuries and crushes refers to commuter rail.

In particular, as for the commuter rail, the incidents were 20 per 100 million PMT, whereas injuries were 17 per 100 million PMT.
Demand response transports accounted for 225 incidents and 173 injuries per 100 million PMT. [Therefore, the demand response means are not only the main cause of fatalities, but the sector with the largest discrepancy between incidents and injuries, with a consistent prevalence of the former ones.]

There were no significant differencies in the overall number of fatalities as for bus, light rail and heavy rail (the latter, with slighly lower figures).
Even for these transport modalities, the incidents are modestly higher than injuries, with a major discrepancy related to light rail, whose number of incidents are almost twice as many as injuries.

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I always struggle with the time! ( It took me 21minutes this task). I'd like to focus on other areas of the ielts for my last pre exam review, but the time management is still the issue!

Simon, I know that it is more about quality than quantity; this is my 16th task 1 written, accordingly to your teaching experience, do you think it is enough? What If I focus on wt1 vocabulary/expressions/linking sentences instead?

the graph gives information about the numbers of people per 100 million passenger miles who traveled by 5 means of transportation having incidents and injuries in a particular year 2002.
Overall, the number of people having injuries showed the more popular level than that of people having incidents in five means of transportation.
the number of people having injuries by using demand showed by far the most popular (227). This was followed by light rail and bus which have the same number of people having injuries (76 for each). At a slightly slower number is heavy rail which is account for 51 while the number of people having injuries in commuter rail experienced the least number.
For incidents, the number of people having incidents using demand response showed by far the most level. At a much lower is bus which the number is 66. There is a somewhat difference between the number of people using heavy rail and light rail. Commuter rail also witnessed the least number among 5 means of transportation.

Hi simon, could i write this kind of chart in 2 paragraph in body part. one for injuries and one for incidents. is it ok? How could i need to improve in order to get a higher score???
Thanks for ur help

The bar chart illustrates the amount of passengers who were been incidents and injuries travelled by five types of transport such as Demand response,bus,heavy rail, light rail, and commuter rail in 2002. Overall, the number of incidents happened higher than injuries for all five transport types.

To begin, Demand response and bus were the majority of injuries in five items. In particular, Demand respomse occupied the highest one at 173 million PMT, followed by bus at 66 million. In addition, the figures of both this items of incidents also were higher than the other types, exceptionally for light rail which equalled to bus at 76 million.

On the other hand, commuter rail war the minority of incidents and injuries by 20 and 17 million than heavy rail and light rail.

The bar chart compares the figure for injuries and incidents in every 100 million miles travelled by a passenger using different kinds of transportation in the year 2000.

It is clear that the rates of incident are higher in all given transportation types than the occurrences of injuries. Overall, the rate of injuries and incidents is highest in the transportation type called Demand Response.

In 2002, there are 225 number of incidents and 173 occurrences of injuries in the demand response category. The bus, which is used by almost 80 people, tallied 66 injuries, whereas the light rail, which has the same figure of incident as that of bus, but has a much lower occurrences of injuries, with a little over half of cases per 100 million miles traveled.

At the same time, the rate of incident and injury using the Heavy rail is 51 and 35 respectively, while the figure for commuter rail has the lowest figure shown on the chart, with 20 known incident and 17 cases of injury.

Hmm... I think a lot of students who post in the comments on this site are misusing the word "discrepancy" in Writing Task 1 essays. This word is often used to refer to data, but it is important to remember that "discrepancy" is NOT a substitute word for "difference"! A discrepancy specifically means that a conflict exists where one expects things to be the same.

Examples:

You conduct a survey and compare your results to that of a similar survey conducted by the government. You notice there are significant (note: significant means "noteworthy", not necessarily "large") differences. You can say that there is a discrepancy between the two set of results.

You perform an experiment to test a theory. You observe that your experiment produces results different from what the theory suggests. There exists a discrepancy between the theory and your observation.

At a company, people holding the same job title are getting paid drastically different salaries. You suspect that some employees are being unfairly treated.. You can say that there are striking discrepancies between the salaries paid within a single job title at this company.

A bar chart suggests that car accidents are more common than train accidents. You cannot say there is a discrepancy between the rate of car accidents and train accidents, because they are not related, and there is no reason why they should share similar statistics.

A survey suggests a high-fibre diet is less likely to cause obesity than a high-fat diet. Again, there is no "discrepancy" between the health effects of high-fibre diets and high-fat diets because there is no expectation that they cause the same amount of weight gain.

The bar chart illustrates the number people who got injuries and incidents per 100 million passenger miles travelled by commuter rail, heavy rail, light rail, bus and demand response in 2002.
In general, the figure of incidents was higher than the one of injuries in all cases with the highest numbers of both incidents and injuries belonging to demand response.
To specify, two main causes incidents and injuries were demand response and bus. Interestingly, demand respomse happened the highest ones at 225 million PMT in incidents and 173 million PMT in injuries, followed by bus of incidents and injuries at 76 and 66 million, sequentially.
In three types of rail, being lower than light rail, heavy rail surpassed commuter rail in the amount of incidents and injuries. On the other hand, the numbers of incdients were more than the one of injuries by commuter rail, heavy rail and light rail by 3, 16 and 37 PMT sequentially. Only in incidents and injuries by demand response, the figures were ten times as many as commuter rail, 225 and 176 compared 20 and 17 million PMT.

Once in a while I see those little shuttle buses going around the small town where I live (in the US), and I believe that this service is mostly used by the elderly or people with disabilities. However, I have no idea why their numbers of incidents and injuries are/were so high compared to other means of transport.

Jean Luc, I read your comment. Well, I actually used the words differency/discrepancy without distinction so far!
I guess it would be considered a major mistake.

As for the use of the adj. "significant" (noteworthy/not necessarily large): personally, I would not focus too much on such details.I don't want to fall in traps like overthinking on adjectives/adverbs when it comes to my writing task.

In terms of time management and priority, such kind of "trifles" could be fatal! I don't think an examiner could be so strict on the difference between significant and large. (as for I understood, they both mean less than "dramatic").

please find below my essay for Writing Task 1. Do you know where I could find useful expressions to use for Writing Task 1? Generally speaking, (yourself or anybody else who has read my essay), how do you find my essay:

The bar chart groups by transportation means the number of accidents and injuries per 100 million PMT in 2002.

It can be clearly seen that Demand Response shows the highest rate of incidents and injuries and that the figures for the former are superior to the latter for all transportation modes.

As regards buses, volumes of the two categories were fairly similar, with a slight difference of 10 million PMT between them. In the case of Demand Response, instead, where incidents were 52 million PMT higher than injuries, they respectively reached a peak of 225 and 173 million PMT.

With regard to the three types of rail transport, there are clear variations in the total of incidents but no significant differences in the number of injuries. In fact, the latter did not exceed the figure of 50 million PMT, whereas the former, which stood at 20 million PMT in Commuter Rail, accounted for 76 million PMT in Light Rail.

I hope no-one is expecting Simon to correct their essays. It is clearly stated on this site that Simon does not provide essay feedback or correction. Correcting even a short essay is more tedious and time-consuming than you might expect, and teachers like Simon and Martin get to do it all the time.

I agree with Jean-Luc,
I think everybody should respect Simon's contribution here rather than exploit it. I am not comfortable with so many students posting essays here, just speculating that Simon would check their essays and give some feedbacks.
I also spotted many grammar mistakes, such as "as regard" "figures are superior to", "accounted for 76 million". students are too lazy to check Simon's previous posts, in which all these problems have been well covered.
just spend two days reading Simon's posts, I think many students can improve their writing significantly. I jjust do not know why people can hardly be considerate of others.

Thanks a lot for Jean's explanations on discrepancy.

in this chart, can i say "the difference between ... and ... was less significant in commuter bus and rail"

could you pls also give us some advice about how to use words "gap" and "disparity"

can i say discrepancy between rich and poor in terms of salaries, i know "disparity between rich and poor" is right.

Hello Simon , I'd like to thank you very very much about your effort .
I got my result today and I got 7.5 in writing by using your strategy , I was stuck at 6.5 before using it . I got 7.5 in Listening and reading ,and unfortunately 6 in speaking which I need 7 . I must confess that I did not practice enough speaking before the test . Anyway , thanks alot .

"I am glad to inform you that I obtained an overall of 6.0 in IELTS Academic examination
(Reading 5.5, Listening 5.0, Writing 6.0, Speaking 6.5, OVERALL 6.0).Your lessons and exercises were really beneficial to boost my knowledge and it was my first attempt - I am so happy and very very thanksss to you Simon Sir---
emran

The bar chart illustrates number of incidents and injuries per 100 million passengers miles travelled (PMT) reported by 5 different transport in 2002.
According to the chart, incident and injuries reported by commuter rail were 20 and 17 per 100 million PMT respectively. In the same period incident report published by heavy rail and light rail were about 2.5 times and a little lower than 3 times higher as compared to commuter rail respectively. Chart also showed same no. of incidents in the same year for both light rail and bus.

Like incidents, injuries also showed similar trend for heavy and light rail. Injuries reported by heavy rail was doubled compared to commuter rail and the difference observed between injuries of light rail and heavy rail was only 4 per 100 millions PMT. Mean while, injuries ported by bus was went up approximately 4 times than commuter rail.

In contrast, the incidents and injuries reported by demand response were too high and about 10 times higher than commuter rail.
Overall, the incident and injuries reported by commuter rail was very less, average for heavy rail, light rail and bus, and very high for demand response.

Hi Simon, I need 7 in writing and I got improvement from 6 to 6.5. The recent twice in writing is both 6.5. Although I didnt feel well in last writing, I still achieve 6.5. I think I am on the right track by following your daily lessons. Thanks alot. Hope I can get 7 in the following exam.

The graph gives information about incidents and injuries as per 100 million passenger miles travelled in five different types of transports in 2002.

Overall, there were more incidents than injuries for all types of transports. It is clear that demand response had the highest number both in incidents and injuries.

According to the graph, there were 225 incidents and 173 injuries reported for demand response. While bus reported as the second highest number with 76 incidents and 66 injuries. As we can see that incidents and injuries in the other three types of transport were lower when compared with the demand response and the bus.

Interestingly, light rail had the same number of incidents as those in the bus with76 incidents. However, it was reported only 39 injuries. It is obviously seen that commuter rail reported with the lowest numbers both incidents (20) and injuries (17) compared with the other types.

Could you advice if using bracket as shown in my last paragragh is appropriate?

My quick advice would be to avoid using brackets in your writing, as they can negatively affect readability unless you know exactly how to use them.

Please note that Simon does not offer essay feedback on this site. This is because analysing essays and providing appropriate feedback requires a lot of time and attention, while also entailing a certain degree of responsibility. Simon has to do this regularly in his classes and updates this site in his spare time, so it's a bit too much.

I think the way you wrote it, Jessica, is acceptable. I don't think it should affect your score if the overall quality of your writing is good. However, repeating a number in brackets is not good academic style unless it's necessary for clarity.

One reason I'm against it is because simply copying numbers from the graph indicates nothing about your level of English. If you're quoting a number because it is necessary to form a well-written sentence, then by all means do it. But putting a number in brackets for the sole purpose of repeating it is just a waste of space, especially when it is already obvious from the graph or bar chart.

"around 9% of Americans were aged 65 or over, compared to about 7% of Swedish people"

"rose gradually over the next 50 years, reaching just under 15% in 1990"

"By contrast, the figures for Japan remained below 5% until the early 2000s"

"with a jump of over 15% in just 10 years"

at about 25% and 23% respectively

Another reason, which is beyond the scope of the IELTS, is that in academic papers, brackets are used very often to perform in-text citations. When an author puts a number in brackets, the reader is used to expecting a citation. At the professional level, brackets are rarely, if ever, used to merely repeat a figure that was clearly illustrated in a diagram.

So in short, I advise against not only bracketed numbers, but the use of any brackets at all on the IELTS. Too often, people who use brackets end up creating awkward sentences. And nearly always, a sentence that uses brackets can be rewritten in a better way without them.

Hi everyone!
It took along time to finish my essay, I were really exhausted.

The bar chart demonstrates the proportion of transportation-related incidents versus the proportion of transportation-related injuries, which are the number of respective occurrences per 100 million passenger miles travelled (MPT) by transportation types in 2002.
In general there were more incidents than injuries for all five transport types and the collisions related Demand-Response transit service rank the highest level.
Out of the five transportation types, the number of highway accidents related Bus and Demand-Response were remarkbly higher, at 76 and 225 respectively for transportaion-related incidents, at 66 and 173 respectively for transportation-related injuries.
It is apparent from the chart that Railway transportation are more safe than highway transportation Interestingly, Commuter Rail caused by far the least troubles, at 20 incidents and 17 injuries. The number of injuries related Heavy Rail was practically twofold that involved with Commuter Rail, with 35 injuries, similarly the number of incidents resulting from Heavy Rail transportation was also approximately twice and half that resulting from Commuter Rail, with 51 incidents. Out of the three mean of railway transport, Light Rail is the most dangerous, with 76 incidents and 39 injuries.

The bar chart illustrates number of incidents and injuries per 100 million passengers miles travelled (PMT) reported by 5 different transport in 2002.
According to the chart, incident and injuries reported by commuter rail were 20 and 17 per 100 million PMT respectively. In the same period incident report published by heavy rail and light rail were about 2.5 times and a little lower than 3 times higher as compared to commuter rail respectively. Chart also showed same no. of incidents in the same year for both light rail and bus.

Like incidents, injuries also showed similar trend for heavy and light rail. Injuries reported by heavy rail was doubled compared to commuter rail and the difference observed between injuries of light rail and heavy rail was only 4 per 100 millions PMT. Mean while, injuries ported by bus was went up approximately 4 times than commuter rail.

In contrast, the incidents and injuries reported by demand response were too high and about 10 times higher than commuter rail.
Overall, the incident and injuries reported by commuter rail was very less, average for heavy rail, light rail and bus, and very high for demand response.

the bar char compares figures for incidents and injuries per 100 million passenger miles traveled by different modes of transportation in 2002.

it is clear that incidents occurred more than injuries in all five transportation types.

it can be seen that demand response was responsible for higher number of incidents and injuries as compared to other means of transportation.
Bus and light rail had similar number of incidents but bus had higher number than light rail,66 and 39 respectively.

out of rest two, 51 incidents and 35 injuries were because of heavy rail which was higher than commuter rail.

to sum up, chart indicates that the maximum incidents and injuries were occurred because of demand response which were 225 and 173 respectively while 20 incidents and 17 injuries happened by commuter rail which are the least.

please simon tell me about task.please give me feedback. i m gonna appear next month. tell me where i stand n how much i need to improve. waiting.